My Share of the Task (54 page)

W
e were, of course, not alone in trying to fight smarter and learn from the mistakes of the past eight years. So too were our enemies.
That summer, the Taliban's senior leadership—the
rahbari
, or Quetta,
shura
—released an updated version of the
layha
, the rule book that ostensibly governed how its insurgent ranks could conduct themselves. The Taliban had distributed the
layha
internally since 2006. But that summer they revised it, and then leaked it to the media as part of their campaign to counteract our counterinsurgency. The new
layha
aimed to rein in the conduct of insurgents—or at least appear to do so—so as to make the insurgency more acceptable to the Pashtun population.

“Mujahedin,” Mullah Omar instructed that summer, “are obliged to adopt Islamic behavior and good conduct with the people and try to win over the hearts of the common Muslims,” by which he meant ordinary Afghans. The sixty-seven sections of that summer's
layha
regulated a range of behavior—from smoking cigarettes to cutting off Afghans' noses or lips, both “
fiercely” forbidden. They reiterated rules for taking prisoners and managing funds—likely worried that their “brand” would be tarnished if their fighters ran kidnapping rings or other criminal enterprises under the guise of holy resistance. The Taliban in Helmand, however, were allowed to continue financing operations through drug trade.

We took most notice of the provisions that mirrored our own directives: The
layha
advised all fighters to take all precautions not to unnecessarily kill Afghan civilians. Significantly, to this end, the directive appeared like an effort to limit the use of suicide bombing. “
A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets,” it said, “The utmost effort should be made to avoid civilian casualties.” The Taliban leadership was reckoning with the mixed legacy of Mullah Dadullah Lang, the one-legged commander whom British special forces killed in 2007. Through his personal sadism and his success integrating suicide bombings into the Taliban's repertoire of tactics, Dadullah had made the insurgency appear more radical and less pious to many Afghans. Suicide bombings were not just scandalous among Afghans, but remained highly controversial among Islamic extremists, clerics, and fighters. (Throughout
the entire 1980s, the Afghan mujahideen never used a suicide attack against the Soviets.) The Taliban leadership knew this. And they had taken notice of the blunders made farther afield in Iraq: They knew of the damning criticism of Zarqawi—his sympathizers complained that his default use of suicide bombing, particularly against fellow Sunnis, had turned Iraq into a “crematorium” of young Muslim men—that had undercut his movement.

But the fact remained that in many cases the Taliban's leaders now had only tenuous supervision over their dispersed units and local commanders, who were often obsessed with making short-term gains to the detriment of the strategic contest. Omar's efforts with the
layha
were, thus, mixed—and mostly for show. The Taliban continued to forsake the rules of war on nearly every battlefield in the country. And while the insurgency killed fewer Afghans through suicide blasts the year
following the book's release, they started killing more civilians through targeted assassinations.

But they also continued to selectively mitigate their fanaticism in order to win the support of the people, and to avoid looking ridiculous or draconian. The Taliban, for example, soon began working with Karzai's government and the United Nations—whom they branded as slaves and infidels, respectively—to run
polio vaccination programs. Mullah Omar's signature appeared at the bottom of a letter that vaccinators carried in order to gain safe passage into Taliban-controlled areas (local commanders had sworn an oath to Omar), and showed to Afghan villagers to persuade them to participate. This ensured that the villagers knew the Taliban had allowed these vaccinators in.

I took satisfaction seeing these developments, not least because it might mean fewer Afghans would suffer and die. The effort to moderate the movement divided the Taliban's pragmatists and hard-liners, presaging a larger schism within the insurgency over whether it could, and should, alter its principles and become a political movement. Moreover, that the enemy leadership felt compelled to respond in kind to our efforts (many of them started by my predecessor) to protect and engage the population affirmed our strategy. They knew what we did: Afghans did not automatically detest the Afghan government and back the Taliban, who enjoyed active support from only a sliver of the population,
even in areas like Helmand where they'd made alarming gains. The crucial support of Afghans was not to be taken for granted, by either side.

In our fight with the insurgency, we were making an argument to the people—that we would win, that the future we promised was better, and that we could deliver it. The insurgents made counterproposals. Ours was a kinetic debate, growing more heated that summer.

| CHAPTER 18 |

Design

June–August 2009

O
n the afternoon of June 26, 2009, I walked to the small theater across from our primary headquarters. By this time, most of the civilian experts we'd gathered to help advise on our strategic assessment had arrived into Afghanistan. They joined members of ISAF whom we had specifically chosen for their intellect and candor. It would be the first of many sessions with the full team.

By that afternoon, I had already begun to rethink the importance of the strategic assessment. When Secretary Gates had first assigned me the task before I deployed, I had viewed it as merely another in a series of assessments, from the previous fall and spring, that would plow the same ground. I expected ours would produce no discernibly different conclusions and merit no greater notice than the others. But as each day passed since my arrival in Kabul, I realized the stakes were rising. The deteriorating situation and my arrival had focused attention on Afghanistan to the point that despite all the previous work done, what we reported would be more prominent and important than I had anticipated.

I thought again about a question National Security Adviser Jim Jones had asked during his visit three days earlier: “Where do we want to be a year from now?” He indicated that was President Obama's question as well. The assessment would help us determine where we could be. It was easy to criticize Afghanistan and our effort, but we had been asked to distill the situation and to prescribe a solution.

The assessment had to be unbiased. Not only were circumstances in Afghanistan quickly making it more urgent. But after long fights against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the renewed interest in counterinsurgency seemed to peak that summer. Two years after the surge introduced the concept to many lay Americans, our assessment fell amid an ever more robust and heated intellectual debate among policy makers and the military over counterinsurgency's value and limitations. So as I reviewed the composition of the team, I was happy we'd included a wide range of thinkers. Energetic former Ranger and think-tank fellow Andrew Exum, Iraq assessment veterans Fred and Kim Kagan, and the helpful, ever-skeptical Tony Cordesman were joined by Steve Biddle, a clear-eyed authority, Catherine Dale, Jeremy Shapiro, Terry Kelly, and others. Kevin Owens, who'd come to Afghanistan on a call from Charlie Flynn, not knowing what role he'd take, would orchestrate the effort. It would benefit from the knowledge and passion of Colonel Chris Kolenda, one of the Army's most experienced Afghanistan experts, and the insights of Lieutenant Commander Jeff Eggers.

With the full team assembled, I gave them the same initial guidance. Keen not to pollute the process, I gave no indication what I thought the problem was. Instead, I asked three questions.

“
First, tell me: Can we do this mission?”

“Second, if so, how would we do it?”

“Finally, what will it take to do it?”

In this and subsequent discussions, I used a car-mechanic analogy to describe the mindset I wanted us to maintain. We were to avoid becoming emotionally tied to any particular course of action or outcome. As “car mechanics,” we would diagnose what was wrong with the car and recommend what actions and resources we would need to fix it. It was up to the car owner to decide whether they wanted the car fixed, whether they wanted only limited repairs, or, indeed, whether the car was worth fixing at all. Our role was to conduct an accurate diagnosis and offer effective fixes.

“Remember,” I reminded them, “we don't own the car.”

The team then traveled across the country to speak with every regional command, several brigades and battalions, most Afghan ministries, and a variety of government officials and local Afghan elders. What they saw in many places astonished them and matched what I saw on my own circulations. They noted a persistent focus on force protection. In many places, our forces had actually sealed themselves off from the Afghan population, whether on base, while driving, or even on dismounted patrols. Few units appeared to take interaction with the population seriously. Most units had little idea what ordinary Afghans were thinking. Those Afghans' decisions to side with either the government or the Taliban would determine our success, but many distrusted our efforts and those of the government.

“The government robs us, the Taliban beat us, and ISAF bombs us,” said one group of elders. “We do not support any side.” Partnering with the Afghan Security Forces was episodic at best. In most places, ISAF and the Afghan National Security Forces operated separately. ISAF units would sometimes ask for a few Afghan National Army soldiers to “put an Afghan face” on a mission.

The assessment team's inputs and my own observations, which had been building since my listening tour, convinced me that more than anything else, Afghanistan was gripped by fear. Lack of faith in their government, concern, bordering on paranoia, over Pakistani-supported Taliban expansion, and an almost primal fear of abandonment by the West: These factors left Afghans angst-ridden about the future. Whatever actions ISAF took would have to be as much about building Afghan confidence as killing Taliban insurgents.

*   *   *

W
hen I'd arrived on June 13, one of the
largest operations ISAF had yet conducted was to begin in less than a week. In the pitch of night on June 19, twelve Chinooks, their elongated hulls loaded with 350 troops from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Regiment of Scotland, known as the Black Watch, descended into Babaji—a heavily contested area northwest of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand. The Scots' first steps out of the blacked-out helos and into the caked sandy ground marked the opening stage of a systematic campaign that summer to retake control of Helmand Province.

Their operation to clear Babaji initiated Operation Panchai Palang, or Panther's Claw. It would soon introduce more than
three thousand British, Afghan, Estonian, and Danish troops into a series of towns along the Helmand River valley. They aimed to secure and connect key population centers and agricultural areas, many long controlled by the Taliban, with the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah and then Kandahar. In the near term, we hoped expanded security in the Helmand River valley would enable greater participation in the August elections, but we knew at the outset that real progress would be measured in months, if not years. Indeed, the problems we faced had been gestating that long.

*   *   *

T
he intersection of tribes, corruption, insurgency, poppy, tyranny, and family feuds and loyalties that would make waging counterinsurgency in Helmand so complicated had its most visible roots in the anti-Soviet jihad of the 1980s. Although 92 percent Pashtun, Helmand's tribal structure was a rich tapestry of tribes and subtribes. Competition for power and resources among the Barakzai, Alizai, Noorzai, and Ishaqzai was old and remained, and in some districts twenty or more tribes were represented and sought sway. Since the 1980s, the power of
maliks
, khans, and elders to represent constituents to the government and control land had been largely superseded by the rise of nontraditional strongmen.

One of the strongmen to emerge from that time was
Nasim Akhundzada, a mullah from Musa Qalah. A devout, effective man, Nasim rose quickly in one of Helmand's most prominent anti-Soviet insurgent groups. The fighting in Helmand, however, quickly got messy and the factions began fighting one another, not just the Soviets. They pursued criminal, tribal, and family feuds under the guise of jihad. In this grapple, Mullah Nasim showed himself tenacious. He reportedly executed his prisoners—Russians and Afghans alike—buried them, and then sat and ate his meals on the
platform he built overtop the soil of their graves.

The anti-Soviet war was good for Nasim's family; his personal ascendance gave the Akhundzadas a prestige they previously lacked. Looking to transform his martial clout into a political and economic franchise, Nasim brought the province an innovation: The expansion of poppy. Though farmers had long grown the bulb-headed crop in the arid, northern tip of Helmand, he succeeded in integrating it down through the agricultural band of the snowmelt-fed Helmand River, where the vast majority of Helmandis live, and into the province's south. He expanded his work under
a fatwa he issued in 1981, justifying the seemingly unholy trade of opium by citing the poverty of the river valley farmers. As Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, Nasim contacted the U.S. embassy in Pakistan and offered to shut down the opium trade exchange for two million dollars.
He was on his way to doing so when assassinated by a rival faction that stood to lose from the eradication. Nasim left behind the structures of a
durable drug cartel, which became the Akhundzada family business.

The withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989 only exacerbated the fray among insurgents-turned-barons and pettier gangs of criminals. Amid these clashes over land, money, and ideology, the population of Helmand suffered. Most of Helmand's roadways became a
checkerboard of roadblocks where militia commanders and local gangs shook down passersby.

When the Taliban arrived in 1994, and dispensed with these warlords and their client gangs, the Akhundzadas put up only brief resistance. Instead, they retreated to Pakistan. It was there the family became close with another exiled Pashtun family—the
Karzais.

Across the border in Helmand, the
Taliban program took hold with relative ease. Especially in the province's sparser areas where a rural, conservative Islam was the norm, the simple religious dogmatism of the Taliban found a sympathetic audience. But the sharia was strict, and Helmandis lost their right to music, flying kites, and dogfighting. Worse, the
Taliban showed themselves unqualified to bring about any substantive economic or infrastructural improvements. Thus began the dilemma of the Helmandis, which persisted in 2009, to be caught between the usurious militarism of warlords and the harsh, incompetent rule of the Taliban.

With the American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, it was the Taliban's turn to flee across the border to Pakistan. When President Karzai returned to Afghanistan and sought a strong anti-Taliban force to install in Helmand, he turned to the clan with the roots and connections to subdue the province: the Akhundzadas. At the ready was Nasim's nephew, Sher Mohammad, whom Karzai made the provincial governor in 2001. Worst among the old comrades, the Akhundzadas brought back into power was a man named Abdul Rahman Jan, who became the tyrannical provincial police chief. He ruled a small district called Marjah as his own drug-financed fiefdom, where he and his men stole boys from local families for their sexual pleasure.

From a distance, their rule gave an appearance of stability; up close, the population chafed. While violence in Helmand only simmered after 2001, small groups of Taliban trickled back into the province and
mustered networks of aggrieved locals. Abdul Rahman Jan became the frequent
posterboy of insurgents' propaganda, and a steady refrain in their stirring sermons.

The situation in Helmand began changing rapidly toward the end of 2005. The British were preparing to deploy a
brigade-size task force to the province as part of wider NATO effort to reclaim momentum from the Taliban across the country. Understandably seeking a better governmental partner than Akhundzada after authorities found him with nine metric tons of opium inside the governor's office, the British pressured Karzai to replace him as governor. Such a move would be a family matter: Perhaps to prevent feuding, or to gain a foothold in the other's sphere of influence, Sher Mohammad and President's Karzai's half brother Ahmed Wali Karzai had
married two sisters. Karzai relented under British demands, however, and removed Akhundzada in December 2005 by promoting him to parliament, away in Kabul.

Akhundzada's ouster came just months before the Taliban's deliberate 2006 offensive into Helmand, led in full force by Mullah Dadullah Lang in February. In spite of a greater Coalition presence—forces grew with the deployment of British troops in April 2006, and by late 2007 they numbered seven thousand soldiers—the Taliban made serious inroads. The insurgency was soon strong enough that British forces were challenged to move outside of the network of small bases they had established. Many were essentially besieged inside sandbagged outposts the Taliban had surrounded with a “reef” of mines and improvised booby traps that made simply leaving base time-consuming and treacherous. Intentions to establish an “Afghan development zone” around Lashkar Gah and Gereshk were frustrated. Among the last places taken by the insurgency, in August 2008, was Marjah. It was rumored that Abdul Rahman Jan, seeking to discredit the new governor and give cause to bring back his patron Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, had let his district fall to the Taliban.

While the Taliban had grown stronger, their strength throughout the province derived more from the poor character of existing governance than the appeal of their narrative. In the areas they took over, the Taliban
eased the population back into their rule, allowing music and dogfighting again, and looking the other way when men went without turbans and a beard. Dadullah's ranks swelled as he gained local recruits in the districts that fell under his sway. He and the insurgency were able to leverage a natural xenophobia and some religious extremism. But for many the motivation for supporting the insurgency was to resist the Kabul government, whose face in Helmand had been that of the Akhundzada clan. We believed that if we could address the underlying problems of predatory governance and corruption, we could help establish secure zones along the Helmand River valley.

That summer, as we introduced new forces in a widened effort, we did so fully cognizant that ISAF's track record in Helmand was unimpressive. Both conventional and special operations forces had successfully targeted the insurgents. But many operations had inflicted damage on homes and caused civilian casualties, unintentionally undermining our effort. We intended that future operations would be different by including a robust Afghan component, having enough manpower to maintain areas once they were secured, and offering a more effective program of creating governance free of warlords.